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LATimes: Do 'SOA' actors ride? Not really

(photo via TV.Yahoo.com)

Well, they ride for the 'Sons of Anarchy' job, but as little as possible, it seems.
Few own motorcycles, says Times reporter (and former cycle columnist) Carpenter in her gentle look at the motorcycling-linked drama - one of the very few successful new shows.
And Charlie Hunnan, the guy who plays the brooding 'Jax,' is English.

LA Times excerpt: [Hunnan]He was spending a rare day off from filming to ride the dusty Hollywood hills that double as Charming, Calif., the fictional setting for the show. And he was riding the only bike the producers would let him borrow -- a barely working backup model with a sticker, rather than paint, for the scythe-and-skull tank art. A bike that -- at some point in a future episode -- will be crashed.
Like most of "Sons' " fictional club members, Hunnam doesn't actually own a motorcycle. He learned to ride once he landed the part. Ron Perlman, who plays the club's coldhearted leader, has taken one riding lesson and has so little experience in the saddle, he says, "that it probably does more harm than good" to see him biking on camera.
Riding skills aside, FX has found a loyal following for its new motorcycle show...
Motorcycles, and the outlaw ilk that are drawn to them, have long been fodder in film. But with the exception of various reality shows, they haven't had much play on TV in recent years.
"The stereotype most people have of the subculture is usually one of two things: these furry, fuzzy teddy bears like 'Wild Hogs,' or the scumbag white trash living in trailers, smoking meth, which is as inaccurate as the other one," said the show's creator, executive producer Kurt Sutter, who developed the characters and plots by hanging out with "one of the bigger clubs" in Northern California. Which one, he won't say...
...Accurately portraying any sort of subculture on TV is tricky -- all the more so with a group as secretive as a motorcycle club. In a world where loyalty and respect are everything, such groups aren't keen to be outed -- or misrepresented....Sutter said he
receives dozens of e-mails a day from real-life outlaw club members. "Generally, the feedback has been positive. I'll just say that most of the e-mails have a picture attached."
...Sutter used a Harley as his primary mode of transportation for six years before selling it to pay for graduate school. He hasn't had a bike in 10 years, he said, but he recently went to a showroom to check out a Harley-Davidson VRod.
"You did?" asked [wife Katey] Sagal, turning to her husband.
"I told you," Sutter said. "And then I had an accident about three months ago where I fell off a ladder and cracked ribs."
"There's no way you're getting a bike," Sagal said...

I am not surprised. But after the show ends, I wouldnt be surprised if these same people take up riding as a hobby. Paul Newman took up racing AFTER his appearance in the movie "Winning", about racing automobiles.

"Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records." - William A. Ward

...But after the show ends, I wouldnt be surprised if these same people take up riding as a hobby...

Could happen, I suppose. William H. Macy learned to ride for 'Wild Hogs' and spoke glowingly of the experience during interviews which suggested he planned to buy his own bike. Of course, that could have been hype. Don't know if he ever did.

BTW, as evidenced in pix - Saw on another site, somebody was questioning the cafe-racer fairings on the Harleys. As in: Why? Valid point, I thought.
Has anybody seen these on Harley cruisers anywhere else? I haven't.
What would be the purpose? Would they deflect enough wind to make it worthwhile?

My theory: It's a design element intended to give all the SOA bikes sort of a unified look.

“Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.”
- William Gibson, 'Neuromancer' author

BTW, as evidenced in pix - Saw on another site, somebody was questioning the cafe-racer fairings on the Harleys. As in: Why? Valid point, I thought.
Has anybody seen these on Harley cruisers anywhere else? I haven't.
What would be the purpose? Would they deflect enough wind to make it worthwhile?

My theory: It's a design element intended to give all the SOA bikes sort of a unified look.

BTW, as evidenced in pix - Saw on another site, somebody was questioning the cafe-racer fairings on the Harleys. As in: Why? Valid point, I thought.
Has anybody seen these on Harley cruisers anywhere else? I haven't.
What would be the purpose? Would they deflect enough wind to make it worthwhile?

My theory: It's a design element intended to give all the SOA bikes sort of a unified look.

Was talking to a coworker of mine who has known some 1%er's, and the fairings are Arlen Ness quarter fairings, which is what a lot of MCs have on their bikes, mostly in California. They really did their homework on the Outlaw clubs to get things true to real life.

Eric: Not helping the situation since 1983

2007 Honda VTX 1300c
1999 Honda Shadow VLX

Originally Posted by Afflo

For the record, Stephen Hawking has proven, via fancy mathematics and strange experiments with a particle collider, that the city of Bakersfield exists in the plains of Oklahoma, and a strange bubble in space allows it easy geographic access to the Inland Empire. Merced and Fresno are out of luck.